


The Truth We Owe The Dead

by ColonelDespard



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Les Amis de l'ABC - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-27
Updated: 2013-08-06
Packaged: 2017-12-03 18:40:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/701406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ColonelDespard/pseuds/ColonelDespard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The year is 1856, the Second Republic is successfully established, and a survivor of the 1832 barricades revisits the story of a group which almost became historic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Aristodemus

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This fanfic It started life as a rather darker, more pessimistic fic based on a line by Colonel Edward Marcus Despard on the scaffold - that there were many better fates, and some worse. Combeferre's fate in surviving was to be undoubtedly worse. But in writing the story, the tone changed. I'm nearly done with the latest chapter, so it seemed a good time to move it here (and clean it up and make a few small additions to the text). 
> 
> The story plays merry hell with French history and has a rather wistful vision of a successful Second Republic. The opening scenario, and Combeferre's role in it, may stretch the suspension of disbelief. Needless to say, it's all incredibly divergent future (Arago was not merely in poor health by 1856, he was also rather dead).

_The lads in their hundreds to Ludlow come in for the fair,_  
 _There's men from the barn and the forge and the mill and the fold,_  
 _The lads for the girls and the lads for the liquor are there,_  
 _And there with the rest are the lads that will never be old._  
 _There's chaps from the town and the field and the till and the cart,_  
 _And many to count are the stalwart, and many the brave,_  
 _And many the handsome of face and the handsome of heart,_  
 _And few that will carry their looks or their truth to the grave._  
 _I wish one could know them, I wish there were tokens to tell_  
 _The fortunate fellows that now you can never discern;_  
 _And then one could talk with them friendly and wish them farewell_  
 _And watch them depart on the way that they will not return._  
 _But now you may stare as you like and there's nothing to scan;_  
 _And brushing your elbow unguessed-at and not to be told_  
 _They carry back bright to the coiner the mintage of man,_  
 _The lads that will die in their glory and never be old._  
\- A E Housman

_"We owe respect to the living; to the dead we owe only truth." – Voltaire_  
________________________________________  
 **Paris, 1856**

"They're fools. Absolute fools. I should have made it a condition of standing down that you be the candidate. Garnier-Pagès is in advance of you in one regard only – he is more the politician." 

Combeferre smiled at his friend, slipping his arm around that of the venerable politician, ostensibly in affection, but also in support. Arago's health wasn't what it had been, and the last eight years - first in the Provisional Government during the transitional period and then as President of the National Assembly - had worn him down. If Arago had any regrets about stepping back now that finally the Republic was settled on a more even keel, he did not indicate it. His sole frustration was over his successor to the role. 

"And as a more effective politician, Garnier-Pagès is the more suitable candidate. He can mediate between the factions…" Arago interupted Combeferre with a sweeping gesture of his hand. 

"It was you who built those bridges in '48. Had it not been for you, the Republic would have been swamped in a tide of discord between the workers, the rural sector and the bourgeoisie within months of its inception. I shall never forget your sessions with Blanc over the reform of the workshops…" 

"Peace, peace" laughed Combeferre. "The campaigning for the nomination is over – it will be Garnier-Pagès, and for that I am not sorry. Like you, I look forward to devoting more time to other pursuits. And I sometimes think your ardent support for me stems more from my contributions, however humble, to your work on the transverse theory of light waves than it does for anything I've done in the National Assembly." 

"You work with light in more ways than one, and should be honoured no less for championing universal suffrage and the abolition of slavery than for observing light waves. But you are right – I do look forward to retiring from active political life." He turned his pale eyes to the dome of the Paris Observatory, in the grounds of which they strolled. For his friend, Combeferre knew, the soaring structure would be little else but a silhouette against the bright sunlit sky. He felt more than a passing sorrow to think that those eyes, such remarkable observers of men, events and the natural world, were beginning to lose their sight and that his friend lived in a darkening world. Arago, however, did not invite nor indulge pity. 

"I am content to leave the nation's affairs in the hands of those who now hold power – the representatives of the people. You, I trust, will not allow science to be forgotten. Our revolution of scientific knowledge in this century cannot be wholly superseded by the political revolution. And the workers trust you – they know that you strive to ensure that they are not ground beneath the wheels of the machines that advance with our technical knowledge." 

Combeferre nodded absently, distracted by a voice that echoed from somewhere long ago. A fragment of a phrase in a lyrical voice – _we will be the masters of water, fire, and of air, and we will be that which the ancient gods formerly were to us!_ He frowned. Who had said that? Part of a conversation – a table lit by a handful of guttering tallow candles, all they could afford as the rest of the money had gone to the printer's press and there was none to spend on cleaner burning wax candles. His rooms on the top floor. 

Enjolras, of course. Enjolras. 

_It was a chilly March night and they had to be sparing with the fuel, but they had not cared – he with a blanket around his shoulders, Enjolras still with his greatcoat on, both fired with the sort of enthusiasm in the young that keeps them warm. Combeferre had been talking of new developments in transportation, had spoken of the applications of steam, of new forms of propolsion that would change shipping, of the Ligne de Lyon - Saint-Etienne railway which would be transporting passengers before the year was out. His friend had assumed that thoughtful, meditative air, which others often mistook for the look of one lost in daydreams. Until his eyes widened as he saw the vision complete before him._

_"What an idea of the future you put before me!" he had exclaimed, and then was on his feet with restive impulsiveness. "Think of it, Combeferre – continents and oceans connected and transversed by fast and sure means of transportation. The commerce and wealth it will bring the people. Inexpensive transportation of the masses – they can travel, seek work, free their bodies as they free their minds. Yes, for such freedom of movement will surely accommodate a freedom of ideas. And even the sky shall not hold us earth bound - "_

_He soared with ideas, one after the other, and though not naturally a pessimist Combeferre felt constrained to point out that the glorious future was not untrammelled. "There will always be those who seek to control this progress to their own ends, or see threats in it." He pointed out, not unkindly. "You know that there are already powerful interests opposing the development of the railways, fearing it will harm their monopolies in coastal and canal shipping. And then, simply those who fear it will disrupt the way of life that they have always known. Some of these concerns deserve to be taken into account."_

_Enjolras moved his hand before him as if impatiently sweeping chess pieces off a board. It was a characteristic gesture that made Combeferre smile wider. "Considerations, yes, but no man can stand in the way of the march of a people's progress…of humanity. These things must come to pass!"_

_And then he had broken off, but Combeferre knew – from the unfocused eyes, from the occasional movement of his lips, that Enjolras' imagination had been engaged. What did he see? What spires, towers, what strange creations, what vast and illimitable future played out before those blue eyes? One day, he knew, the ideas he saw germinating in Enjolras' words would be more fully articulated in one of his speeches. For now, Combeferre spoke of his own visions, his solid projections of technological progress and things that were already in the progress of becoming. And Enjolras seemed to listen – but how much he absorbed those ideas, of Combeferre's talk of different reciprocating engines and compressionless technology, Combeferre could not guess._

It often happened like this. A phrase uttered in the National Assembly, or even the tone of the speaker, and that particular blue-eyed ghost would stand between him and his fellow legislators. Or a light rill of laughter from a crowd of students in the Latin Quarter, and he would strain to see which one in the group laughed, whether he had Courfeyrac's wide, wicked, generous mouth. In the earlier years, he had even forgotten sometimes that they were gone, the memory lost in a beat of impulse. A poem he came across – "I must clip that for Jehan…" with realization following hard on the thought that he could not know if Prouvaire cared for poetry now, wherever he was. But the startling clarity of the scene in the apartment, of the soft glow of his dead friend's hair in the candlelight, of the expressions that had played on his face, even the engineering journal on the table in front of him - this clearness and immediacy, fading now for many years, had returned. 

Combeferre shook himself a little. He knew why that particular shade had flickered into sudden life. Les Amis de l'ABC had been much in his thoughts these last few weeks. Enough to call them to his waking mind as well as his dreams. 

"I'm sorry, my friend – I realize I'm on political matters again. I know you're well acquainted with these affairs." Arago said kindly, aware of Combeferre's sudden abstraction. "Anyone would think I was reluctant to leave such subjects alone. But I embrace the possibilities before me – well, I must admit, I'll probably continue to dabble a bit in national affairs. I'm interested in all those urban redevelopment plans coming through the Assembly committee. De Lamartine and Blanc are going to have to temper some of the more grandiose expectations of the bourgeoisie if they can't effectively rehouse the poor – a nice wide avenue is no compensation for the loss of what is a home, however much the wind whistles through the chinks and the mortar crumbles. But there, I'm off again." 

"Are you still planning on visiting your family in Roussillon?" Combeferre asked politely. The old man nodded. 

"And then I will concentrate on my new position at the Academy of Sciences. I shall have to step down from that role as well before many years are out – my eyesight does not allow me to perform my duties as I would wish, and it grows worse." He waved off Combeferre's protests. "No, I'll let someone younger step in as Secretary. I have something to contribute, yes, but then I shall go before I make myself ridiculous. Perhaps I shall have better luck in securing you as my successor in that role." Combeferre smiled – Arago always fought for the interests of his protégés. 

"I think perhaps you should consult Le Verrier on that. Though I should enjoy working with him again." 

"You mentioned devoting time to other pursuits. Are you finally thinking of starting a family?" 

"At my age, that would make me far more ridiculous than anything you could do as Secretary of the Academy of Sciences. No, I want to devote time to my writing, and that may require some research." 

"Aha! Excellent! What this time? Not another volume in the Second Republic series – it's too soon for that. And there's not enough time to compose it before the anniversary anyway. I can't see anything else you can cover in the Revolution series. Will it be a scientific study, then? That condensed work on human anatomy we've discussed." Arago never suffered from a lack of ideas. 

"I'm not planning on a scientific text. It will be a history. About a group of men…of friends, from my youth. They perished in the June Rebellion." Combeferre expelled a breath. There, he had said it. The idea that had been vaguely forming now had been codified and given expression to someone else. 

"The 1832 rising?" Arago frowned, trying to recall. The _Société des Amis du Peuple_ , that ferocious fighting in St-Merry cloister? Charles Jeanne? You campaigned for his release, didn't you? I did not know you well then, but we discussed it once." 

"Yes. We spoke of it during the prison reform debates. He was a brave man, who died in the filth of a gaol. I did not even know while I was writing my petitions and trying to interest someone in his fate that he was already terminal, and word only reached me of the futility of my efforts when he had been dead nearly a month. But it is not his story I seek to tell, although I must of necessity make some reference to his loyalty and courage in my work. I am writing of another barricade and others – students and workmen. It is a personal memoir." 

"Then you were on the barricades in 1832?" Arago exclaimed, surprised. Combeferre's expression was studied. 

"Until the early hours of June sixth. I was sent away – no, not like those who afterwards tried to disclaim all responsibility for their part, or who never heard a gunshot yet boasted when they felt it was safe to do so that they had been there. Our leader – and he was a remarkable man – ordered me away." 

"And that is why you do not speak of it?" 

Combeferre shrugged. "It was a long time ago. Important events have happened since. But yes, it did not seem to be my right to speak of them, as they fell there, and I did not." 

Arago tucked his cane under his arm and used his free hand to pat the arm Combeferre had put around his own. 

"We may be thankful for whatever reason he sent you away, Combeferre. Your work for the Republic since has been invaluable. We must respect the sacrifices of those who fell on the barricades in all their long history, but it has fallen to you to play another part, and you have done it admirably." 

"I can rationalise that now," Combeferre agreed. "But there was a time when I was not sure which was the worse fate – to remain, or to be condemned to live. At the time, there was no doubt in my mind. They were my brothers." He felt something in him tighten in that old, old spasm of grief. The impulse to speak of them – an impulse that had been growing steadily more imperative – took a hold of him. 

"Enjolras – he was our chief – Enjolras was closer even than a brother. Others saw him as a being of light and fire, the Revolution incarnate, and he was those things. But he was also my friend, and I saw him in so many lights and shades…and now he is lost to the passing years. If the people had only known him…the country…but he was still yet in his youth. He had not quite taken his bar exam. We were all young, even the workman in our group, a young fan maker, who for us personified the toilers of the world." He shook his head furiously. "But I'm lapsing into archetypes, and that's not who they were. I could write an article or even a single volume summarising their contributions to the _émeutes_ from 1828 to 1832, to the July Revolution, and precisely what they accomplished and what they failed to complete. I could analyse where it went wrong, and why 1830 was a betrayal and why in 1832 Enjolras' usually impeccable sense of timing and the mood of the city were so wrong, or so it would seem to a determined critic. I could write a pathetic memoir of their lives and their glorious martyrdom. But I want to do none of these things...or rather, all of them. I want to write something different – a biography of a group of people who were almost historic." 

Arago stopped his slow and uncertain steps to face Combeferre, withdrawing his arm, examining with his friend with eyes so keen that it seemed impossible he was half-blind. "Then you must tell their story. But not as another epic in the already lengthy annals of our revolutionary history. And it must be honest. That is all we owe the dead – the truth." 

"Enjolras would accept nothing else," Combeferre smiled. "Although I'm sure Courfeyrac would enjoy a bit of embellishment. And Bahorel would prefer the most heroic light cast on our stand…" here he faltered a bit as somewhere in memory Bahorel, that extraordinary natural force, went crashing to the ground, run through with a bayonet. Dead in the first assault – oh, Bahorel, I suppose I shall have to write that your impetuous spirit had to pass before the rest. 

"And how much of yourself will be in this work? Is this your absolution for surviving – your penance?" 

Combeferre considered the question. "No. It is time to take my place among my friends – I shall proudly proclaim my friendship, and my part in the story." He took out his pocket watch. "But I have beguiled the time here too well, François – I shall be late for my appointment at de La Rochefoucauld. Shall I accompany you to your chambers?" Arago waved him off. 

"No, I shall be fine to walk back to the Observatory – you go on to this meeting. But if I may-" Combeferre was pained to notice how stiff his fingers were, extracting a notebook from his pocket – "please give me the name of the barricade where your friends perished. And their names. You shall have the archives covered, I know, but I have contacts and may soon have time on my hands as well – I'll keep an eye out for anything of use." 

"Enjolras, Courfeyrac, Prouvaire, Bahorel, Joly, L'aigle" here he quirked again into a grin "or Lesgles, and Feuilly. All save the last were students – more or less. Some less than others" (Bahorel now…what was he again? And Lesgles? Were they still enrolled in June 1832? He needed to remember these things…) "It was at the Rue de la Chanvrerie". Writing excruciatingly slowly, Arago noted the names, checked the occasional spelling. 

"And where will you start – with the individual biographical backgrounds?" 

"I have a few rough notes, but will need to start at the end rather than the beginning, working my way backwards. Over the years I've found back numbers of some of their articles and publications" and a poem or two, he thought, and a sweetly soft voice from somewhere on the other side of death murmured a line about love. "There was at least one other survivor of the Rue de la Chanvrerie – although I did not know him well, and I have not spoken to him beyond a brief meeting some years ago. I shall start with him. 

The two friends parted. 

So now it was time to return to Les Amis de l'ABC, and to deliberately evoke the dead he had spent more than two decades respectfully burying. No…not burying. He had always known it would come to this – that he would need to address them one day. And something in him yearned for their company. Now, so far distant, it could not harm him to linger with them once again. 

The dead were owed the truth. 


	2. A Worse Situation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Combeferre begins to explore what happened in June 1832, ghosts of memory stir.

John Macnamara: 'I am afraid, Colonel, we have got ourselves into a bad situation.'  
Edward Despard: 'There are many better, and some worse.'  
\- Scaffold conversation, 1804  
________________________________________  
In the days after the insurrection, it was rumoured that the Seine had run red where the blood from its victims seeped from the Morgue into the river.

Had the blood purified those tainted waters when it mingled with them? Prouvaire would have thought so. Perhaps it merely made the already polluted waters murkier. And the cynics would have said that it did not matter - soon the river flowed on again, the blood a fleeting stain to be effaced just as quickly and permanently as the blood on the paving stones. But Combeferre's memories could not be removed so easily. Those events had changed the colour of his mind like blood through the Seine, only much more permanently.

In those hours, creeping through the deserted streets after escaping from the rue de la Chanvrerie, his desire had been to turn back, or to try to do something – anything – to rally Paris to their cause. What of those men who had vowed to join them? Workers, students…men of the National Guard, men of influence. What had happened to them? They had said they would continue the work of 1830 when the time came. They had sworn their oaths.

Until that moment when Enjolras had returned from his reconnaissance, they thought it had been in the balance. Years later, he had spoken to Dumas about it – Dumas, who on the night of the 5th June, still weak from his own bout with cholera, had tried to rally Lafitte and Lafayette to create a provisional government.

It had seemed so possible that summer to continue the work that had been cut short in 1830. With the unrest in Lyon, and the discontent over commitments Orléans had avoided in July 1830 to the specific demands of the Republicans for universal suffrage, freedom of the press, speech and assembly, the city had seemed a kindling pile, dried to the point of combustion by the withering epidemic, awaiting a spark.

"We have a chance," Enjolras had said. "The fundamental structure is unsound. When the door is rotten, if we attack it with explosive force we may kick it down." In summer 1832, it had seemed the door was rotten enough.

He had stood by Enjolras' side in 1830 on the grand staircase of the Hôtel de Ville, the gun he had been given by a National Guardsman who had joined their side in his hand, the day that Orléans had arrived to negotiate with Lafayette. He had seen the look in Enjolras' eyes, cool and appraising, as the two national figures had appeared on the balcony, wrapped in the tricolour. "Deeds, not words" Enjolras had muttered, and looked significantly at Combeferre.

They had all changed with 1830. The Revolution stolen from under them, all of them had come around to Enjolras' simple philosophy when faced with an obstacle that could not be circumvented, one attacked it with everything one had, and either smashed through it or smashed oneself to pieces against it.

And so the blood had seeped into the Seine.

Combeferre reviewed his papers in the fiacre on the way to Pontmercy's residence in the Marais – he did not keep his own carriage, remaining simple in his personal habits. He had ample opportunity to study his material during his slow, jolting progress along the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, although most of the points he had jotted down he knew by heart. Figures, eyewitness accounts, notes on the displacement of bodies.

There was so much information in the evidence compiled for inquiry into the rising – it told him everything and nothing.

The report from the morgue's medical examiner was not as detailed as one would expect had the deaths occurred under other circumstances, but it did not fail to note the cause of death. Courfeyrac had been torn apart by grapeshot. Joly and Lesgle bayoneted. Feuilly had taken three bullets. Bahorel…well, he'd been there to see Bahorel bayoneted.

And Prouvaire, with multiple bullet wounds.

It had been found that Prouvaire had been shot while attempting to escape – no matter to the chairman of the inquiry that his wounds had been to the chest. Anyone attentive to the evidence submitted would have found the account of a national guardsman who indiscreetly referred to the summary execution of a captured insurgent, but no one had bothered. No one had seized upon the incident – not even the Republican press.

The high number of fatalities at the rue de la Chanvrerie had caused some comment in the newspapers, but of public indignation there was little. Unlike the rue Transnonain incident two years later, there had been no Honoré Daumier to document the slaughter in a memorable lithograph. As the dead were combatants and not bystanders the incidents would not have been regarded as comparable anyway. Nor had there been any survivor willing to bear public witness, to relate the story of their struggle and capture the popular imagination. There was no Charles Jeanne to stand defiant in the dock.

The Amis de l'ABC had not entirely vanished into obscurity – their name and defence of one of the barricades of '32 had a minor place in Republican mythology, and the leaders of the society held places in the pantheon of Montegnard heroes. But as no voices had survived the rue de la Chanvrerie, their narrative was lost in the wider Republican story, merging with other _émeutes_ , other victims. There was nothing to distinguish them from the men who fell in 1834 or 1839 or any of many more minor street battles, a democracy of death and oblivion.

He would have leaned his head against the panelling on the side of the fiacre, closing his eyes to the memories, but thought the better of it with the thick smear of macassar oil that had accumulated there.

He had not raised his own voice in the days following the June rising. The temptation to do so had been there – to defiantly throw his lot in with the dead. He might have been tried, but like so many others might have been acquitted or given a comparatively light sentence. And perhaps their story would not have been so utterly lost. But he had promised Enjolras that he would survive and rebuild, and he could not do that from a gaol cell, although later Republicans had turned their prison sufferings to a propaganda advantage.

He might have joined Blanqui, to write of the Republican cause from the perspective of suffering and struggle under the weight of incarceration. Instead, he had worked quietly for a decade, nurturing the roots of 1848.

Back to his notes. Data to keep at bay the familiar faces that threatened to paint themselves over the clinically identified and described corpses of the rue de la Chanvrerie.

Enjolras had been found within the Corinthe itself, although where precisely was not specified. With eight bullet holes in his chest. The evidence suggested summary execution. When? Had their friends carried him in there, to the makeshift ward and hospital? Or had he died within those walls, in that last ditch defence he had anticipated?

He remembered the last time they had moved in complete accord, the last communicative touch on the arm. Enjolras had drawn him in for a hasty conference over the need to provide a practical means for those to escape who would. His words had been quick and urgent, painting a vivid image of the elderly woman he had seen at the window. It was a simply, homely vision, so much the more poignant as it was so intimately observed and not an abstract image of sacrifice.

When they returned, it had taken their combined efforts to send five men from the barricades. And then Enjolras had drawn him aside again, and this time he could not have anticipated the request that would be made of him.

"A further word, Combeferre?"

Combeferre nodded absently, his mind still on the men they had sent away from the barricades.

Enjolras lead him back inside the Café, through that Hall of the Dead. Combeferre averted his eyes from the silent man tied to the post – that reminder of the aborted prisoner exchange. He had been afraid Enjolras might be too rigidly uncompromising to agree to the attempt, but when it had come to it, their chief had not hesitated. Fully acknowledging that his inclination was to fulfil his obligation to the justice of the Republic, when it came down to it he was prepared to save his friend.

Fraternité had its place in Enjolras' heart - his adamantine devotion to the abstract did not preclude love of humanity, and above all, his friends. If he were as cold as some gibes directed at him would have had it, as preoccupied with the theoretical above the human, he would have made a point of sacrificing his friend to his principles. Combeferre had never needed proof of the contrary, but their leader's concurrence in Combeferre's plan had provided affirmation of what the medical student had always known.

It was bitter indeed that it had been in vain. Prouvaire was dead.

"I need you to do something for me," Enjolras said as soon as they were alone.

"I am at your disposal."

"I need you to leave the barricade."

The words did not make sense.

"To follow up on your reconnaissance?"

"No." He shook his head firmly. "It is all as I have reported it. We have nothing to hope for. The men have spoken – they wish to remain here until the end." It was unnecessary to add that Enjolras would follow their decision. "This is why we need you to leave the barricade. You must not fall here."

"I don't understand…"

But Enjolras had all his arguments mustered as surely as he had overseen the distribution of the pavement stones they had torn from the street and assembled the bottles from the cellar.

"Listen to me – and do not comment until I am done. We will perish here, or be captured. Our work is undone for this day. But it must not end here – nor will it, even though we should all fall. What is needed, though, is continuity between what we have learned and built in the last five years and the future. We can and shall inspire here by our example, but I want to make sure our practical gains are not lost either. One of us must survive and go free."

"And you think that should be me?" Combeferre was too bewildered to be horrified at the suggestion.

"You must hear me out. I have trusted you implicitly in all. You know of the web of contacts we have here and outside Paris – all those shoots we have nurtured. You understand the overarching vision of the future beyond the immediate aim of the establishment of a Republic. The practical means, yes, but also the broader applications of our objectives." He held up his hand to stop Combeferre's protests. "There is more, too. It is you who can embody all our stories. If no one is to walk free from this place, then we are lost."

"You need me here – "

"You know the barricade will hold as long as possible with as few men as feasible – we have designed it thus. We – you – must look to future work." And here he smiled, and looked very, very tired. This was not the Enjolras who stood in the redoubt he had created for himself, alert and without fatigue despite the sleepless passing of the hours, hard, pure and invulnerable. Now, with the dim light of dawn and the lamps of the room, there were shadows under his eyes and his cheeks seemed hollow, his expression drawn.

"Of us all, you're the one with the broadest compass – you fight with us on the barricades, and you join Feuilly when he goes out among the workers and tries to educate the poor. You embody philosophy, but you have proven you can be warlike when it is called for."

"I'm no warrior, Enjolras – that's Feuilly, or even Courfeyrac."

"That's true enough," said another voice. They turned to the new speaker – Courfeyrac had padded in on stealthy, catlike feet, and they had not seen him join them. He had a uniform of the _Garde nationale_ over his arm – Combeferre wondered where he had found or concealed it - with the corner of his mouth quirked up in a smile. Combeferre almost ached to see him so very much himself in spite of their circumstances. "You're no warrior, however amply you armed yourself for the funeral, and that's yet another reason why Enjolras is right: you should go. Feuilly and I can do what is needed here on the barricade."

Enjolras nodded.

"The torch may flicker here, but it must not go out," he said. "Carry it forward for us."

Combeferre wavered.

"My oaths –"

"If you die, all that we have planted and nurtured will be swept away" Courfeyrac said bluntly.

Enjolras put his hands on either side of Combeferre's head and pulled him forward until their foreheads touched. Combeferre had his eyes closed, committing the touch of those long, sensitive fingers to memory, imprinting the warmth of Enjolras' breath on his face. He knew how this dispute would end. Enjolras would win.

"My friend," Enjolras' voice was warm, knowing and compassionate. In these hours on the barricade, it seemed more than ever that as his ideas soared towards the ideal, he was embracing his fellow man. "I know that I am burdening you with a greater sacrifice than our own. To live on is the harder fate. There is no one else of whom I could ask it. Will you promise me this?" That was his way with Combeferre – he did not order, he requested.

And Combeferre saw it all clearly – the lighting illumination of the storm, telling him it was all true. He would need to be the survivor.

He wondered if this was one of Enjolras' plans, those chessboard series of anticipated moves. How long ago had Enjolras begun preparing for this outcome?

"You can write our story one day," Courfeyrac said as the two men broke contact, clearly feeling that the mood had need of lightening and putting an arm around Combeferre's shoulder. "And can tell it as you will…I suggest making me the leader of our little cell," he winked. Combeferre saw, even then, how completely unaffected by the jest Enjolras was. Hierarchies were nothing to him, and he would have stood aside had it been necessary. "And give Joly a serious malady – you know, he really has soldiered on admirably for a man with a cold. Make it phthisis, at the very least…" he was steering Combeferre towards the door, and Enjolras flanked him on the other side.

"I will do it. I will go –" at the last word, his voice broke on a sob. They paused at the door beyond which the wounded lay and the end to their privacy. Enjolras said nothing, but squeezed his arm and, taking the uniform from Courfeyrac – handed it to him and assisted him to dress.

Nothing remained to be said. Enjolras repeated his instructions for escape by way of the Mondetour barricade. "You know where my papers are – those that I have not destroyed."

"I – there is not time to say goodbye to the others, is there?" Combeferre asked, fearing his resolve would fail him.

"I'll tell them," Courfeyrac said, and Combeferre knew that his friend would convey all that he had said and left unsaid. He nodded.

He looked back once after they had helped him over the barricade, raising a hand in farewell. The dawn light had not yet reached for into the small laneway to make seeing easy, and his eyes were dimmed with tears, but he could make out their forms standing at the junction of the streets, watching him depart. Enjolras's hair was softly backlit into a halo glow, and he smiled bitterly a little at the morning light providing so blatant a symbolic touch. His friends stood so close they might have been holding hands.

Lonely as the way in front of him was, he envied their journey, the one that had diverged from his own. Where they went, they went together. The path that stretched out ahead for him seemed infinitely more desolate, bereft of joy, bound for a destination of which he must not lose sight. Marianne's embrace had never seemed colder, but he must don the armour of the ideals his friends had shared and find the way forward.

He jumped as the carriage door was opened, bringing him very abruptly back to his present circumstances. He had not realized that they had come to a halt, and must have been sitting there for some time. "Your destination, monsieur" said the butler on the other side, who had descended the steps of the house to meet him. Had the driver been trying to raise Combeferre's attention? He was truly becoming absent minded and distracted. Courfeyrac had always said –

He consciously broke off the thought. He didn't want to think of Courfeyrac at that moment.

He smiled at the butler – interesting, either Pontmercy or his wife didn't favour the ridiculously archaic attire of the powdered wig variety so beloved of both the nouveau riche and the _Ancien Régime_ – and hurrumphed a little.

"So sorry – I must have dozed off," he apologized. The butler inclined his head in polite acknowledgement.

"Monsieur Combeferre? Monsieur le Baron is expecting you."


	3. What the Baron Remembered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Combeferre travels deeper into the past, and finds that some restless ghosts are joyous.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Permanent hiatus interupted by Pilf, Hammy and a number of remarkable other people who have an affection for this story that I won't pretend to understand, but for which I am deeply grateful. As another chapter was already written when I retired to lick some wounds, I thought I was being a bit precious in not publishing it. It will follow on from this one and as they've been far more flattering and generous than I deserve - particularly with Hammie's gorgeous art - I may write up the rest of the notes.

_One told me, Heracleitus, of thy death and brought me to tears,_  
 _and I remembered how often we two in talking put the sun to rest._  
 _Thou, methinks, Halicarnasian friend, art askes long and long ago;_  
 _but thy nightingales live still, whereon Hades, snatcher of all things, shall not lay his hand_  
Callimachus, epigram on Heraclitus (translated by A W Mair)

Combeferre was lead into the salon with assurances that his host would be with him shortly. He could hear the rise and fall of feminine voices in the hall, calling from room to room, and the occasional tap of light feet moving backwards and forwards to the accompaniment of the odd masculine interjection that was evidently overruled by mature female tones. Some household or family issue evidently had Pontmercy's attention, so Combeferre politely diverted his own.

He turned his attention to examining the contents of room, the public face of the household, and divining what he could of its occupants. For the most part, it was furnished in conventional taste – the stiffly padded, slippery brocades of the chairs indicated its formal use, but even here, in this outward presentation to the wider world, there were touches of family life. A volume of Baudelaire – Pontmercy's? His wife’s? An offspring of advanced tastes? - sat on one of the occasional tables. A glass casket with a dried bouquet, holding some personal significance of which he could not be sure...a wedding, a gift. A wax doll under glass.

Amidst all the sentimental prints on the walls, formal portraits and one large still-life of rather over-ripe fruit over the mantelpiece, he could make out one or two lithographs depicting the 1848 Revolution. It was a curious addition to the otherwise conventional reception for visitors to Baron and Baroness Pontmercy.

He rose to the footsteps of ...his host? Combeferre hesitated at the appearance of a comfortably rotund man who entered with an easy manner and a smile of welcome. The man’s hair was receding from his high forehead, emphasised by the way in with it was combed straight back from his brow, and although he could only be in his forties it was so liberally streaked with grey it was evident it would soon be completely white. It was matched with an iron grey beard, and the figure before him wore the sober frock-coat and large gold watch chain of the thoroughly bourgeois.

It took Combeferre a moment to overlay the memory of the slim, shabbily dressed, dark haired figure of the boy he had once known over the man who stood here before him, and he thought at first he must be mistaken. This could not be Pontmercy. He had not yet quite managed the connection when the man spoke –

"Combeferre!" - extending a hand in greeting and using the other to touch his guest's arm in easy affability, guiding him back to the seats. Combeferre inclined his head in acknowledgement.

Only the eyes, he realised. Only in those fine dark eyes could he really trace the young man he had known, grown and matured now into material well-being and personal ease of manner.

"I hope I haven't called at an inconvenient time..."

"Not at all," Pontmercy waved him into a chair. "A minor domestic matter. My eldest daughter is getting married, and I was called on to arbitrate between her, her mother and one of our long-standing female retainers on matters of wax orange blossom trim and organza. They will ignore my opinion, of course, and rightfully so."  
"I congratulate you and your family on the happy event," Combeferre said politely. Pontmercy smiled broadly.

"So much fussy nonsense about weddings these days. All these English customs – honeymoons and second-day dresses...I had no idea until my little Adelie and my dear wife started on their planning what was involved, and that it took more planning than a military campaign." Pontmercy hesitated, and just for an instant Combeferre caught a glimpse of the gauche boy he had known, awkward and ill at ease. He smoothed over the moment.

"I am delighted to find you settled in such happy circumstances." It was time to edge around the purpose of his visit, lest they be caught up in endless civilities. "I regret that last time we met – you may not recall it – we didn't have much opportunity to speak. You had, I think, been married some twelvemonth at the time."

"Ah...some wine?" Pontmercy asked with the entry of a maid bearing a tray with a carafe.

"Please."

Excellent merlot splashed into cut crystal, and Pontmercy took an appreciative draught before resuming the conversation.

"I recall it very well," he said. "Mme de Girardin's salon. I was so terribly..." He smiled with a little self-deprecation, accompanied by a dismissive gesture of the hand to substitute for the appropriate adjective. "To be frank, I'm a little ashamed of myself. I was so startled, you see. It had all been unreal. Those terrible events followed by long and ghastly days and nights. And then, when I had thought it all quite done with...there you were."

"You mentioned you had been ill."

"Yes – I was wounded when the barricades fell." His hand rose to the side of his head, where a faintly puckered scar could be seen extending down from the retreating hairline. His fingers hovered uncertainly for a moment. With the change of expression, there was the brooding youth Combeferre recognised well. "I think it was the thought of she who was to become my angel-wife that saw me through those long weeks. And when they passed, and I was wholly myself again, or nearly so, the barricades all seemed like such a dark dream. Seeing you brought it back into sharp relief and it fell into place. It was real."

Combeferre remembered his own reaction to encountering that pallid face again in 1834, wreathed in curly hair, standing with the old stiff formality but now, most surprisingly, with a young lady's arm tucked around his. When his eyes met Pontmercy's, when he saw the recognition, the mutual disbelief, he had felt as if the ground lurched a little beneath his feet.

Pontmercy was only in their company with Courfeyrac – part of that curious, diverse entourage of friends with which the student travelled. If Marius was present, it was because Courfeyrac was as well.

And now here was Pontmercy, and Courfeyrac was...nowhere.

The pang was no less vivid in 1856 than it had been more than twenty years ago. Once again, he felt keenly how much he missed – how much he needed – Courfeyrac's smile and Courfeyrac's laughter.

"It is understandable," Combeferre said softly.

"You do understand? I...one does not like to admit to the breakdown of one's nerves. But you know." He looked at his hands. "For years, I would start when I heard a sash window slam to, or if a housemaid dropped a tray."

"And the dreams."

"Yes."

Combeferre suddenly felt terribly sorry for this man. He had somehow been caught up in their wake, largely through Courfeyrac's sweeping personality, and he had been hurled into a maelstrom not of his making or desire. 

"It was...I didn't smell gunpowder for years” Pontmercy continued, “but when my wife and I were attending a ceremony with my younger boy at the École Polytechnique and saw him at drill...I took a whiff of powder, and there I was. I could hear...I could see..." he shook himself. "You know, when I walked in just now, I expected Courfeyrac to be only one step behind you."

Of course. Courfeyrac, the link who connected them.

"I am very glad you have undertaken this work," Pontmercy said, and the boy in him retreated again. "I should be delighted to assist in whatever way I can. Here are my notes," He took a sheaf of papers from a sideboard and handed them over. "As complete as I could make them in answer to the questions you sent me."

Combeferre was too disciplined to grab the papers, and he managed to refrain from doing more than leaf through the pages. The names of the dead met him – snatches of conversations, descriptions...new information to feed his hungry eyes. But mixed with his eagerness was a sense of trepidation.

There were many men and women alive who recalled the Amis. He had received a long letter from an advocate in Strasbourg who related an adventure with Courfeyrac and Bahorel in which they had managed to secure three Delvigne rifles with the help of a sympathetic National Guardsman and a late night race through streets and over rooftops. The man had missed the émeute, attending his father's funeral after his death in the epidemic, and the lingering regret coupled with guilt at his own survival was palpable in his letter. There were former students of the Sorbonne who had told him they remembered Enjolras only as a cold and silent man, others who spoke of him with regard and even affection. One of his fellow Deputies in the Assembly had produced an entire sheath of correspondence he had preserved in which Enjolras had outlined his ideas on everything from the Ventôse Decrees to the role of caricaturists and satire in political discourse. Several members of the medical fraternity he had once belonged to remembered Joly – forever linked in their recollection with Bossuet. The scattered members of Jeune France had much to tell him about Prouvaire and Bahorel...Gautier had painted a vivid word picture of the two of them passed out in Borel's cellar after drinking too much of his highly toxic punch.

But most of all, they remembered Courfeyrac. Schoolfellows who had attended the Lycée Charlemagne with him, billiard playing comrades...One ex-mistress – now comfortably married to a grocer and with a brood of children – had shown Combeferre a lock of his hair, the faded silk ribbon less vibrant than the still-bright chestnut curl it was tied around. "Tell me how he could be dead?" she had asked, her solemnity robbing the words of their mawkishness. "How his laughter could be dead?"

"Thank you," he said to Pontmercy.

"I wish I could be of more assistance. My memories are not very clear – they are impressions and ideas, but it has been so long. I did write a few notes some years afterwards."

"Oh?" Combeferre was curious.

"It is a strange thing..." he hesitated, and it was possible to actually see the very moment in which he decided to confide in Combeferre, a man with whom he had never been close. A flickering of expression. "It's Courfeyrac, you see."

"I was so happy those first few years of my marriage," he continued. "The past had been a dark pall that lifted. I was never one of you, not really. In my memory, the smoke and flame distorted your figures and you had sunk into shadows...it seemed I had been permitted to strive by the side of giants, and as much as I admired you all, it was not my part to think of myself as one of you. And they were all gone – that old man with the flag, Mabeauf, and Courfeyrac...all my friends. In one moment swept from the stage. My wife was my lover, my friend, my confidante. I was reunited with my estranged grandfather. I made some foolish mistakes in the early years of my marriage – I was still so young – but it was a new epoch and I had been shaken out of my apathy and inward looking vision to responsibility and adulthood.

"It must have been a good three years later, when I was walking down the rue de Rivoli, and I remembered a spring morning there with Courfeyrac and him telling me he had a new client for one of my translations. I was unprepared for what I felt – a sudden, overwhelming need for him, for his warmth and his humour and his expansiveness. I had not realised I missed him so much, but in that moment I wanted more than anything else in the world to see him. And it all came back to me...how could I have been so blind as to not see what he did for me?"

"Courfeyrac never counted debts," Combeferre said gently.

"No...no, he didn't. And perhaps because he didn't tally them, I wasn't as acutely conscious of them as I should have been. From the day I arrived in Paris – friendless and ill-equipped to deal with either the city or its inhabitants – to the night I arrived on his doorstep and he took me in without a word, he was unstinting in everything he gave. I was grateful, of course...grateful in a perfunctory way. But I was more conscious, by the end, of the sting of debt than of his generosity in giving. More than that...I made so many mistakes in our friendship. I guarded my secrets jealously, made excuses to myself that Courfeyrac could never appreciate how special my affairs were, when I realise now of course that if anyone could have understood, it was he. But I believed my circumstances, my feelings, absolutely unique and thus far beyond his comprehension. What a fool I was."

"Courfeyrac would call you a fool as well – but never forget that he would have done it with all affection, and most likely have better understood your reticence better than you give him credit for."

Pontmercy smiled wanly. "Perhaps you are right. I had so little experience of friendship, you see – my upbringing was very solitary in terms of boys my own age, and I did not realise how rare a man Courfeyrac was, or how wonderful his friendship was.

Combeferre smiled, then - smiled broadly - because not all memories have a sting.

_The sound was so soft at first that Combeferre couldn't be sure what it was. It was almost like the distant cry of a child, hardly heard over the winter wind outside and the murmur of voices in the cafe. But when it was repeated, it was unmistakeable – it was the mewl of a kitten. He looked first to where Prouvaire was seated, but the poet looked up, apparently as mystified as he was. Another soft cry, and he shifted his gaze to Courfeyrac with raised eyebrows._

_Of course it had to be Courfeyrac. He had come into the Musain shortly before and for some reason had refused to remove his greatcoat in spite of the fact that they had a good fire going – unusual, as he loved to bask in warmth but disliked being too bundled up indoors, hating anything that stifled his perpetual movement. There was some prank here afoot, no doubt, but it was odd...Courfeyrac's practical jokes usually ran to something a bit more sophisticated than frogs in people's beds and animals concealed in coats. His air of absolute, wide-eyed innocence, however, convinced Combeferre that he was engaged in something out of the ordinary._

_Prouvaire was evidently about to ask him something about his mewling coat when the sound came again – and this time it was echoed. Courfeyrac, it seemed, had more than one animal concealed on his person. And that was enough to draw Enjolras' attention. Their chief looked up from his newspaper with a questioning expression._

_"Courfeyrac, what is that sound?"_

_"What sound? You're hearing things. I've told you before that too much sobriety leads to delusions. Reason must have its rest from time to time, which is why we dream fantastical things when we sleep – it is a corrective for the mind..."_

_Enjolras fixed him with a look, and Courfeyrac sighed, digging his hands into his pockets. Out of each, he pulled a tiny, thin, bedraggled kitten – they could not be more than a few weeks old. He set them on the table._

_"What are those?" Enjolras asked mildly._

_"Your powers of observation are letting you down." Combeferre couldn't help smiling.  
"I mean, why are you carrying kittens in your pockets?"_

_Courfeyrac surveyed them for a moment, then reached out a hand to caress the closest, a grin spreading across his face._

_"Mittens!" He supplied. "They warm my hands in my pockets!"_

_And then Prouvaire was bustling away to beg milk from Louison, Enjolras was shaking his head before raising his newspaper up again – only Combeferre caught his slight smile – and Courfeyrac was leaning across the table, scolding the tiny animals about their lack of good grooming, something no cat should forget. Of course, as it later emerged, he had found the two starving and shivering in the street on the way to the Musain, but as always he laughed off even the slightest good deed._

Combeferre was of two minds about including the incident in his writing. It was almost too pat, too neat as an illustration of Courfeyrac's character...and too liable to the sentimentality that Courfeyrac would have laughed at, unless it gave him an advantage with a sentimentally minded girl.

"Here," Pontmercy said, taking a Chinoiserie box from another drawer and extracting a piece of fabric. "I have nothing of his – not even a note – nothing save this."

He put an old cravat into Combeferre's hand...once it had been black, now it was faded to a dark green. It was stained.

"It is the cravat he wore the day of the funeral...he tied it around my head at the barricades when I was wounded, and they removed it with the rest of my clothing when I was taken to my grandfather's house."

Combeferre swallowed hard and turned the scrap of material over in his hands. He felt a wave of grief at the sheer random nature of what was left of the past, what he had to work with to try and reconstruct his friends, to bring them to life on the page. This cravat had been nothing to Courfeyrac at the time – he had many that were more fashionable, but he had chosen one suitable for a funeral. And yet of all those wonderful, colourful cravats that he had tied with such care, this was the one that survived.

This was biography, he knew. He had spent hours poring over a page of Enjolras' jottings on scrap paper that had by chance survived, words and phrases for a speech, trying to use them to reconstruct the living idea of the man, and knowing that nothing could breathe full life back into the fragmented words. He had searched in vain for some personal letters from Lesgle to give him more insight into his family, but the family line had died out. Prouvaire's sombre Huguenot family had burned all his correspondence, and all that had survived were his few published works – a poem here, a letter to the newspaper there - and some letters to friends.

All these fragments had become invested with so much importance because they had a faint necromancy, a power to bring back the dead, however distantly. But the resulting portrait could only ever be incomplete...what writings survived, what memories – coloured and distorted by the years as they were – anecdotes and incidental objects that had survived the attrition of time. By their mere survival they attained importance, and sometimes a significance beyond what was innate, and what it had actually meant in the totality of their lives.

And so much was lost and irrecoverable.

He would do his best. He would try to reclaim them. And he had to trust to his own innate questioning to ensure he didn't fill in the outlines he could sketch with tints and shades that were untruthful to the original.

"Thank you," he said, handing back the cravat to Pontmercy, noticing how reverently the man handled it, smoothing the old fabric with his hands. Courfeyrac, who had no time for relics of saints, would have laughed. "You have been very kind. I shall read the papers and then perhaps get back to you?"

"Please do! Or..." Pontmercy hesitated. "Would you stay just a while? I would like to...to speak of them. To speak of Courfeyrac. I did not wish to burden my wife, and later, when my circles of friends grew wider, it was not a topic one could casually broach, even with friends. It was all so hard to explain, and now that I'm with you I should very much like to speak to someone who knew him. I have missed him so. Sometimes that feeling comes on me again and I would give almost anything to have just an hour with him – the need of him is a longing that has never left me, only something I have become accustomed to with long use. He has become...almost a voice in my head. When my first child was born I heard him congratulating me, sometimes I can imagine him chiding me for timidity or exulting in my prosperity. It would be a joy to speak of him openly, as a reality that was rather than a ghost that is."

Combeferre settled himself into his chair with a grin, and allowed himself to indulge in the pleasure that was remembering Courfeyrac.

"Do you remember how 1832 dawned? Spring came early, and with it the rumours of cholera across the Chanel. It made Carnival more frenzied than it had ever been known, in defiance of death. Joly and Bossuet demonstrated the Galop Infernal in the back room of the Musain, and I think even Enjolras laughed – or at least considered doing so. And it was the year that the can-can was introduced...Courfeyrac took it up immediately."

"I remember him trying to drag me to my feet in his rooms once to try and teach me," Pontmercy smiled. "It was not to the taste of such a serious young insect as I was!"

"Did you ever hear how he smuggled a girl into Les Variétés to dance a can-can? His mistress, a rather voluptuous chorine – it was an idea cooked up between the two of them, de Beauvoir and d'Alton Shée...Courfeyrac had her draped in a heavy shawl, beneath which she wore nothing but her shoes and gloves. When she threw the shawl into Courfeyrac's arms and began to dance the can-can, the cry went up _Vive Vénus_...not even the police, crying of an _outrage aux moeurs_ could intervene, driven back by the crowd. Courfeyrac helped her slip away while they beat back the gendarmes..."

They spoke for the better part of an hour, Pontmercy asking most of the questions, so eager to know all the things about Courfeyrac he had not asked the living man. But then, as the hour grew late, the household claimed Pontmercy once again. A servant brought a message from his wife that it was imperative he come and placate the cook whom, it seemed, objected to the idea of additional help being hired for the wedding feast, insisting she could do it all by herself.

"One more thing," Combeferre recalled before taking his leave. "Something occurred to me after I wrote with those questions. Grantaire – did you see him at all?"

"Grantaire..." Pontmercy thought for a moment. "That rather –er - inconvenient fellow? Always bellowing and talking over everyone?"

"He would answer to that description, I imagine."

"I don't remember him at all. Why would he have been there?"

"He was – at least, at the very beginning." Courfeyrac, he remembered, had gone upstairs once and reported him sleeping off his great bout of drinking. _He has a cloud of fumes around him... I put his head on a coat so he can sleep it off._ "And at the end, it would seem. His body was found with the others."

"If he was there, I don't remember him at all. I don't think he was fighting, but then, we did not know each other well, and I might not have seen him. And I'm afraid with my injuries my memory is not entirely to be trusted."

"Never mind," said Combeferre. Had Grantaire died as an accidental casualty, a mere bystander caught in the wrong place when the cafe was stormed? It would not be the worst sin to lay at the National Guard's account. He feared he might never know, and Grantaire's end might slip into complete oblivion.

He could almost imagine Grantaire's derisive snort, as if that were just what was to be expected.


	4. The Star-Sown Vague

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Combeferre engages in the reconstruction of memory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some period-related Orientalism in this via Balzac. If you're wondering why this is lurching forward at all, you can blame PilferingApples, Hammy, Combeferre's Cannon and Roberta Wickham and those who contacted me to ask about it! (Self-deprecation aside...thank you. I don't know if you're fully aware - or if I can properly express - what your continued interest means to me).

_There’s a narrow ridge in the churchyard_  
Would scarce stay a child in his race,  
But to me and my thoughts it is wider  
Than the star-sown vague of space. 

James Russell Lowell, “After the Burial”

*******************************************************

_“I don’t understand,” Courfeyrac said, his inquisitive curiosity to the fore. “The quality of the illustrations doesn’t seem any better than those in my yellow-bound novels of dubious reputation. You can get better pictures from the grubbiest print-stand along the Seine. And the typefaces have all the eccentric faults of your wardrobe, completely lacking in harmony.”_

_Prouvaire batted Courfeyrac’s hand away from the copy of 'l'Histoire du Roi de Bohême'. The book was laid reverently atop his coat on one of the Musain’s tables, Prouvaire having also carefully wiped away any residual stickiness on the surface as a precaution. It was meant for Combeferre’s perusal, but any new object, activity or person was bound to attract Courfeyrac’s attention sooner or later, and now his curly head was bent over the book as he flipped through the pages with merry abandon and no sense of defence for the books rarity._

_“No, you’re missing the point, Courfeyrac! Books may still incorporate copperplate illustrations, but look at how the woodblock engravings have been integrated into the stereotype plate. The vignette technique blends the two, so that the picture becomes one with the text and the page itself.”_

_“It seems that Nodier is interested more in producing fantastical effects than in a coherent narrative,” Combeferre said cautiously. The book was a curiosity, no doubt of it – heralded as the advance of the Romantic movement into the world of the printing press, it was as startling in its own way as one of the newly popular and wildly erratic dances by Musard, the 'Galopes'._

_“You remember that vignette by Chartelet of Napoleon crossing the Saint-Bernard Pass -”_

_“The Corsican is never a good argument on your side, Prouvaire.”_

_“My point, Courfeyrac, is the technique. The way in which the image was integrated into the text – the white of the page becomes the snows of the mountain pass. The entire work is one of unity with the author’s purpose.”_

_“Hrm.” Combeferre said thoughtfully. Leafing through the pages, he began to gain a sense of how the work, apparent nonsense, showed an ingenious use of different typefaces, some of them in playful pictorial arrangements. The book made liberal use of woodblock prints, and even to his untrained eye it was evident that they were used in a unique manner. “It would seem the illustrations are not confined to alignment at the top or bottom of the page.”_

_“Yes!” Prouvaire cried, squeezing Combeferre’s arm in his enthusiasm. “You see! Imagine the potential – words and images united visually, no longer treated as separate, disconnected elements but as an artistic whole!”_

_Combeferre smiled. Prouvaire was right, and Nodier’s whimsy suddenly revealed itself in its full potential._

_“Ah!” said Courfeyrac, the light breaking through at last. “I see! A work of artistic unity.”_

_He bent his head over the book again._

_“Do you think Diderot’s publishers could be persuaded to do such an…artistic version of ‘Les bijoux indiscrets?’” Courfeyrac asked with his widest grin._

**1856**

Combeferre’s understanding of printing techniques had come far since that conversation in the Musain’s back room, and he – like the reading public – had long since become accustomed to the innovations that had so excited Prouvaire. When he acquired his illustrated edition of _Paul et Virginie_ , his thoughts had been as much of the light in his poet friend’s eyes, the fired enthusiasm, as they had been of what the press had to say about the masterful illustrative technique. 

Long familiarity had bred, if not contempt, then at least a weary resignation to the tedious processes of translating images to the finished product in his own work. His _Histoire de la Révolution de 1848_ was generously illustrated with some fifty woodblocks and eight fine copperplate engravings, a satisfactory end result achieved by many hours of meetings and correspondence and a great many rejections where an engraved plate had failed to properly convey the original illustration.  


And the process was to begin again. Combeferre was not near to completing the work – he had the final volume to write and significant material to add to the earlier chapters to flesh out his notes on the 1830 barricades as a prelude to 1832 – but his publisher, Léon Renault, was keenly forging ahead with his advance publicity, aready distributing notices to the provincial sellers via the _Dépôt Central de Librairie_ , an association of publishers. It was for this reason that he had called Combeferre into his offices in the rue de Richelieu. 

Combeferre, as a rule, thought rather kindly of Renault even if – as now – the publisher cut quite an affected figure, leaning back behind his desk in his swivel chair, surrounded by proofs, books and ledgers, chewing on the end of a cigar. Though not exactly lolling about like Dauriat, Balzac’s fictional sultan of publishing, he was exuding a general air that gave his office a spiritual kinship to the seraglio of the presses. A great deal of that, Combeferre knew, was a facade for the benefit of his editors and competitors in the world of print. Renault had left the world of the yellow cloth bound books and entered the more rarefied world of respectable leather clad volumes only a decade before, and while he had shelves full of excellent historical and scientific titles to his publishing credit – including Combeferre’s entire oeuvre to date – one’s perch on the teetering pile of Parisian publishers could never be taken for granted. 

But Renault had a sense of humour as well as a keen eye for good properties that came his way, and regarded with amusement some of Combeferre’s more waspish comments when he became exasperated. The story of how Combeferre had written Renault an acerbic note “congratulating” his printers on their collaborative contribution to the second edition of his _History_ , attaching a long list of typographical errors they had introduced after the final proofs had been corrected, had become one of the publisher’s favourite tales. He had told it to third parties in Combeferre’s presence at least half a dozen times. 

Now, he was all enthusiasm for a new marketing technique. “Let us get their names out there – I want people curious about their characters before the first livraison is sold. As soon as that article for the _Journal de Paris_ is published, we’ll have some of the copperplate etchings selling at the print shops and stands.” He gave a wide, encompassing smile across the desk, before taking the cigar out of his mouth to enunciate his point with emphasis. “By the time we go to press, half the reception rooms in France will have your friends’ portraits in their scrapbooks or hanging on the walls of their front rooms!”

Combeferre shifted uncomfortably. “As long as they talk about them and their ideas as well as admiring their visages,” he said pointedly. 

“Talk of them? Of course they’ll talk of them! But look at these!” He thrust a plate at Combeferre. A finely etched image, wreathed in a complicated border of entwined laurel, flags and Phrygian caps and all sorts of Republican paraphernalia. Combeferre squinted at the portraits. Nine of them. He read the caption - _The Chief and Lieutenants of Les Amis de L’ABC_

“You included Grantaire and myself?”

“Well you, of course. Must weave you into the story, for all you underplay your part. If you won’t play the omniscient and invisible narrator then we must insert you in to the story. And Grantaire seems to have been an intimate of your circle, from what I’ve read of the text so far.”

Combeferre was silent. There was truth in that. It hadn’t been until one of their discussions, when Renault had asked him a number of questions about Grantaire’s presence in so many scenes, that Combeferre had consciously thought to himself of just how much a part of the story he was. And it made it even more difficult to ascertain and accord him his precise place. Oh, there were anecdotes – Grantaire managing to talk the gendarmes out of searching Lesgles on one occasion, and another when he’d almost seen the lot of them rounded up when he was apprehended sloppily pasting up placards too near the Tuileries – but assigning Grantaire his rightful position in their group was not easy. 

Grantaire had not been his closest friend, it was true - Courfeyrac, Bahorel, Joly and Bossuet had been his most intimate companions – but they had been friends nonetheless. Grantaire had an irresistible warmth that made one overlook his more irritating traits. And when remembering the backroom of the Musain with the soft-lit tones of memory, Grantaire stood out in much more vivid colours than many who had passed through those doors, the foot soldiers under Enjolras’ lieutenants. Reboux for instance, who was forever writing plays with his Italian friend Cama (Reboux, he recalled, had died in the early stages of the epidemic. Cama had drifted away from the group some time before, and Combeferre did not know what had become of him). Even their friend Évariste Galois, companion of Bahorel and – if not officially a member of the cell – a frequenter of their meetings, and one who would certainly have been on the barricades in June had a duel not claimed him the month before. Grantaire was a lively presence in his memories of the ABC, and always the questions. Enjolras’ curious trust of the man, his faith that whatever his flaws, Grantaire would never betray them by accident or intent, no matter how much he disavowed their Republican ideals. 

Having thought about it – and the remembrance that Grantaire had died at the barricade where he himself had not – Combeferre did not feel right according him the part of the buffoon, there to lighten with a comedic touch. He made a poor Greek Chorus, too, having never been particularly insightful in his rambling cynicism – to try to pin Grantaire to an argument or a position was to try to pick up mercury with a fork. He eluded Combeferre, neither rightfully in nor out of the story, and it was as he worked on his notes on the final chapters that Combeferre looked for an insight, a clue, on where to place him. Grantaire’s end would help to determine his beginning. Or so Combeferre hoped. 

Putting on his glasses, he examined the plate more closely, and recoiled a little in distaste. 

“Is that… _that_ …meant to be Enjolras?”

“The central figure? Of course.”

“That…prim-mouthed child?” Combeferre was more startled than angry. Enjolras’ full lower lip had been shortened, that upside-down cupid’s bow mouth turned into small pursed lips, his eyes round and wide, the entire face without force or any character save of the most vapid kind. 

“Well, we had only that sketch of him as a youth to work from, and your words.”

It was Enjolras and yet not Enjolras, the lines of his features prettified to the point of unrecognizability, and all his character stripped from him. 

“It won’t do” Combeferre said decidedly.

“You’re the one that said he looked younger than his years. We could re-engrave the plate-” Renault said hopefully.

“It won’t do in the slightest. Have Berger call on me so we may discuss it. Courfeyrac looks as if his eyes are bruised – what are these dark circles around them? Prouvaire may do – his features are overshadowed by that oversized eccentric plumed hat, but they generally were when he wore it – but Bossuet is altogether too stolid. Oh, no, no – this won’t do at all. 

“Very well,” huffed Renault. “It’s fortunate that this is going to sell, or I wouldn’t indulge you so. It is not easy to reconstruct portraits from what scanty records you have provided us and almost no visual references.” 

That was true, thought Courfeyrac, looking at Feuilly’s face. His immediate impression was of a hat and side whiskers – much more plentiful than Feuilly had worn in life, as if the artist had decided to compensate for his lack of any portrait at all of this particular man by resorting to a face shadowed by a cap pulled low over the working man’s eyes, giving him a furtive look, and whiskers to hide as much as possible of the features beneath.

“How about this barricade plate?” Renault offered in a conciliatory fashion. “It’s a very fine barricade.”

Combeferre conceded that it was indeed a very fine barricade, if perhaps three times as high as the one in the rue de la Chanvrerie had been. 

“Notice the omnibus,” Renault said with pride. “See, they picked up that detail well.” 

They had. There were also a few other details he was pleased to note, such as the shattered glass and the flag made of a sad old man’s coat. Combeferre decided to ignore the distant voices – one that spoke in a whisper of not dampening the general enthusiasm and another ringing in sorrowful pride that "This is our flag now" – in order to critically examine the image. Broadly speaking, it looked as such a barricade should, although the whole gave an impression of greater dimensions than the original – not only the height of the barricade, but the width of the street. When he suggested this, Renault shrugged. “Berger felt it should have a scale appropriate to the sweep of the tale.”

“Why is there always such a plethora of barrels in illustrations of barricades?” Combeferre observed testily. “It could do with a few more paving stones and a few less barrels.” 

“You are sounding annoyed, my friend – so I shall probably annoy you more with my next request. This Enjolras-” he tapped his finger on a plate showing a gesturing man that - in cheerful contradiction of the portrait illustration – showed the prim-mouthed child of the former now looking a good twenty years too old to be a student, but whom the caption assured the viewer was indeed Enjolras “- we need to bring out his pleasures and pursuits more.”

“And why should we need to do this?” Combeferre asked guardedly, decidedly not liking where this was going.

“Well, this priestly austerity is all very well – very noble and commendable and all – but we really need a figure of amorous romantic appeal.”

“Do we?” asked Combeferre dryly. 

“Yes. Now, I know you’re not going to like me saying it, but there is tremendous potential to widen the audience for this work. As it stands, every serious minded student of history and politics will like it, yes, and those moved by patriotic sentiment. But the story is more than that – there is so much high minded tragic adventure to the tale that even those who are not sober students of history will want to read it. And forgive me, for I mean no disrespect, but your handsome, noble, doomed paladin of the cause here is going to prove very popular indeed with the feminine segment of our audience.”

“Courfeyrac was the paladin,” Combeferre said bemusedly. The cigar performed another expansive circle in the air. 

“Is there nothing we can say to widen his romantic appeal just a little further? What this story needs is a touch of the affaires de cœur to balance all that high purpose you infuse it with. I would never ask you to lie or distort, of course, but is there not some lady…some tender little interlude, some softness in his heart for one of the fairer sex? Even if it’s not a full blown love affair,” he said hastily, taking in Combeferre’s expression, “just something we can hint at that suggests a tendresse, an impulse of love never allowed to bloom to full fruition, as Enjolras sacrificed his personal happiness for his cause? There must have been some women he knew, and your pages seem remarkably bereft of them, or student life isn’t what I recall it to have been.”

“I think I’d have as soon imagined the archangel Gabriel striking up a flirtation with the Virgin Mary,” Combeferre said firmly.

“But is your friend the Archangel or the Virgin?” Renault sighed. “Well, never mind – we can make something of your friend Courfeyrac, can’t we? And I seem to remember a mistress or two elsewhere in your draft. And besides,” here he cheered up considerably, “they do say that the women love a priest. Something about all that unapproachable chastity – do they fancy a challenge, do you think? Well, thank you for coming in – here, take these drafts for the publicity with you.” 

“We seem to be putting the cart before the horse” Combeferre huffed, taking up the portfolio of papers. He caught the header on one: “A Tale of Tragic Grandeur!” it proclaimed in florid letters.

“Or the funeral procession before the barricade,” smiled Renault, then patted Combeferre on the arm. “Take my word for it – by the time the last volume is published, Hugo will be writing poems about your friends and Delaroche will be immortalising them on canvas.”  
********  
Combeferre, emerging into the rue de Richelieu, felt the need to dissipate a sense of nervous unease arising from his conversation with Renault. It was not the publisher’s fault. Combeferre knew the business well enough to recognise the necessities of making a book commercially viable. Some of their conflicts over his previous works came to mind, including a fiery argument over Renault’s desire to insert connective tissue into the text that would transform some of Combeferre’s fellow deputies into figures of what the publisher felt was sufficient grandeur for the heroes of ‘48. Combeferre also appreciated his editor, Georges Marrinan’s, input – he was masterful at bringing what was Combeferre’s sometimes wandering narrative back to the a cohesive point. Combeferre had a tendency to become somewhat diffuse in his desire to weigh up all sides to an issue, question all motivations and present all possibilities. Publisher and editor were usually at hand to remind him when he was in danger of losing his audience in a welter of observation and a delight in detail. 

He chose to walk back to his rooms, activity the match for his mind’s restiveness as he tried to quell the unease. 

What was it, then, that had so bothered him about his interview with Renault? Why this disquiet over a process with which he was so familiar? 

He had known that this was part of writing about his friends. That if he was to convey their story, he would need to present it, to package it, in such a way that people would see, would understand, and embrace it. Grantaire and his part were a case in point, a pat illustration of how people escaped narratives. History and personalities were messy and untidy things – they sprawled and refused to resolve themselves into neat patterns, they could be read many ways. Combeferre’s Enjolras was not the Enjolras his parents had known…not even precisely the Enjolras Courfeyrac had known, or Prouvaire. Each man revealed part of himself to others, was read by others in certain ways, and as much as he might reach, as a biographer and historian Combeferre knew that he could never hope to capture the entirety of the friends he had loved. As sincere as his efforts to truthfully portray them, he knew he was, in a sense, reinventing them. Creating them for an audience. It was a subtler version of the broad brushstrokes with which Renault painted, but he, too, was trying to confine the chaos of life into a portrait for the consumption of a wide audience. 

Was he doing them a service, or a disservice in doing so? 

Enjolras had envisioned a future where the soul would gravitate around the truth. Sometimes Combeferre wished he could see it as clearly as Enjolras had, that pure, simple, burning vision. Enjolras had an effect on one that worked rather like a catalyst or clarifying agent in an experiment – he resolved, he galvanised, he introduced clarity. And Combeferre had found, in his friend’s long absence, he would always feel the loss of that missing element. 

Combeferre’s thoughts wandered along these lines until he reached his rooms – a modest second floor apartment in a building just down from the Place Vendôme. What was there to do but go forward? To present the truth as best he saw it, or risk rendering them as unrealistic, remote, and unrelatable figures. To imagine those implacable blue eyes and their clear-sighted gaze – that must be his strength and his clarity of purpose. And if the truth was not something to be neatly boxed and beribboned for public consumption, then that was how it was. He would measure, appraise, and record. He saw no need to dilute or shroud the facts – the worst of them was such that only the most narrow of critics could condemn those human frailties when measured against their best.

And the best was transcendent. 

He was still musing in this vein as he placed his hat on the hall console and noticed that his concierge had left an envelope there for him. It bore Arago’s seal. Opening it, he found it contained a summons to his friend’s office the following day in the abrupt, epistolary style they used as old colleagues. Combeferre had to read it twice to take in its full import.

“Please be so good as to call on me in my chambers at the Institute tomorrow in the AM – have found a piece of your puzzle in the form of a National Guardsman who fought at the rue de la Chanvrerie.”


End file.
